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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 39:7 - 39:7
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(Heb.: 39:8-12) It is customary to begin a distinct turning-point of a discourse with וְעַתָּה: and now, i.e., in connection with this nothingness of vanity of a life which is so full of suffering and unrest, what am I to hope, quid sperem (concerning the perfect, vid., on Psa 11:3)? The answer to this question which he himself throws out is, that Jahve is the goal of his waiting or hoping. It might appear strange that the poet is willing to make the brevity of human life a reason for being calm, and a ground of comfort. But here we have the explanation. Although not expressly assured of a future life of blessedness, his faith, even in the midst of death, lays hold on Jahve as the Living One and as the God of the living. It is just this which is so heroic in the Old Testament faith, that in the midst of the riddles of the present, and in the face of the future which is lost in dismal night, it casts itself unreservedly into the arms of God. While, however, sin is the root of all evil, the poet prays in Psa 39:9 before all else, that God would remove from him all the transgressions by which he has fully incurred his affliction; and while, given over to the consequences of his sin, he would become, not only to his own dishonour but also to the dishonour of God, a derision to the unbelieving, he prays in Psa 39:9 that God would not permit it to come to this. כָּל, Psa 39:9, has Mercha, and is consequently, as in Psa 35:10, to be read with å (not ŏ), since an accent can never be placed by Kametz chatûph. Concerning נָבָל, Psa 39:9, see on Psa 14:1. As to the rest he is silent and calm; for God is the author, viz., of his affliction (עָשָׂה, used just as absolutely as in Ps 22:32; Psa 37:5; 52:11, Lam 1:21). Without ceasing still to regard intently the prosperity of the ungodly, he recognises the hand of God in his affliction, and knows that he has not merited anything better. But it is permitted to him to pray that God would suffer mercy to take the place of right. נִגְעֶךָ is the name he gives to his affliction, as in Psa 38:12, as being a stroke (blow) of divine wrath; תִּגְרַת יָֽדְךָ, as a quarrel into which God's hand has fallen with him; and by אֲנִי, with the almighty (punishing) hand of God, he contrasts himself the feeble one, to whom, if the present state of things continues, ruin is certain. In Psa 39:12 he puts his own personal experience into the form of a general maxim: when with rebukes (תֹּוכָחֹות from תֹּוכַחַת, collateral form with תֹּוכֵחָה, תֹּוכֵחֹות) Thou chastenest a man on account of iniquity (perf. conditionale), Thou makest his pleasantness (Isa 53:3), i.e., his bodily beauty (Job 33:21), to melt away, moulder away (וַתֶּמֶס, fut. apoc. from הִמְסָה to cause to melt, Psa 6:7), like the moth (Hos 5:12), so that it falls away, as a moth-eaten garment falls into rags. Thus do all men become mere nothing. They are sinful and perishing. The thought expressed in Psa 39:6 is here repeated as a refrain. The music again strikes in here, as there.